1. Chapter 17: Stress and Health
Case Study: The Slow-Food, Low-Stress Diet
Section 1: Understanding Stress
Section 2: Stress: Responses and Effects
Section 3: Psychological Factors and Health
Section 4: Ways of Coping with Stress
Simulation: Applying What You’ve Learned

2. Case Study: The Slow-Food, Low-Stress Diet
The ability of the French population to consume foods heavy in fat and sugar but remain slim became known as the French paradox. One French scientist claimed that the effect was caused by drinking wine, but this theory was disproven. Instead, researchers now think the difference is in the way the French eat a meal: slowly, without rushing or performing other tasks while eating. These studies show that the French consume less food in a meal, even though they spend more time eating. It seems that our eating habits are not only unhealthy, they are adding to our overall stress levels as we strive to eat more healthfully. –

3. What do you think?
What are some of the key factors that might explain the French paradox?
Do you think Americans are ever likely to change their eating habits and adopt the French diet? Why or why not?

4. Section 1 at a Glance Understanding Stress
Stress is the arousal of one’s mind and body in response to demands made upon them.
Sources of stress include frustration, daily hassles, and life changes.
Different types of conflict contribute to stress.
Some people create their own stress through their personality type.

5. Understanding Stress Main Idea Reading Focus
Many different situations and events can produce both good and bad stress. Some personality types may even create their own stress.
Reading Focus
What are the two different kinds of stress?
What are the main sources of stress?
Why does conflict cause stress?
How does personality type affect stress?

6. Are you a slave to success?

7. Different Kinds of Stress
In physics, stress is defined as pressure, or a force. In psychology, stress is the arousal of one’s mind and body in response to demands made upon them.
Eustress is positive stress
Increases sharpness and motivation and can keep people alert and involved
A sign that a person is taking on a challenge to try to reach a goal
Eustress
Distress is negative stress
Linked to intense pressure or anxiety
Can strain people’s ability to adjust to various situations
Can dampen mood, impair ability, and harm the body
Distress –

8. Identify Supporting Details
Reading Check
Identify Supporting Details
Why isn’t all stress bad?
Answer: Good stress can increase motivation and keep people alert and involved.

9. Sources of Stress Frustration Daily Hassles Life Changes
Stressor: an event or situation that produces stress
What is a stressor for one person might not be for another.
Some stressors are common to most people.
Frustration
Being blocked from attaining a goal, such as being late to an appointment or lacking money
Many frustrations are minor, but more serious ones can be extremely stressful
Daily Hassles
Everyday frustrations: household, health, time-pressure, inner-concern, environmental, financial, work, future-security
Life Changes
Major events such as moving, serious illness, or a death
Many life changes are positive, and tend to happen less often

11. Click on the image to play the Interactive.

12. How can sources of stress influence a person’s life?
Reading Check
Make Generalizations
How can sources of stress influence a person’s life?
Answer: Sources of stress influence a person’s life in psychological (depression or anxiety) and physical ways (health problems).

13. Conflict Approach-Approach Conflict Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict
Least stressful types
Each of the choices are positive
Usually resolved by making a decision
Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict
More stressful
Neither choice is positive
Resolved by making a decision
Approach-Avoidance Conflict
Occurs when a choice has both positive and negative aspects
Multiple Approach-Avoidance Conflict
Most complex form
Each of several alternative courses of action has its advantages and disadvantages

15. Which type of conflict might cause the most amount of stress?
Reading Check
Analyze
Which type of conflict might cause the most amount of stress?
Answer: avoidance-avoidance conflict, there are no desirable choices

16. Personality Types Some people create their own stress.
Two basic personality types: type A (intense) and type B (laid-back)
Type A people are always on the go and put pressure on themselves
Type B people are more relaxed and patient, and do not become angry as easily as type A
Type A people usually achieve more than type B people, but their success comes with a price of heightened stress

17. How does the behavior of type A and type B people differ?
Reading Check
Contrast
How does the behavior of type A and type B people differ?
Answer: type B person more relaxed and less intense than a type A

18. Section 2 at a Glance Stress: Responses and Effects
Maintaining a positive attitude and a sense of humor are among the ways that people can reduce the effects of stress.
Stressful situations produce the three stages of the general adaptation syndrome.
Chronic stress can suppress the activity of the body’s immune system.

19. Stress: Responses and Effects
Main Idea
People respond to stress in different ways, but stressful situations produce similar responses in the body. Stress—especially chronic stress—can even compromise the body’s immune system.
Reading Focus
What factors influence our response to stress?
What is the general adaptation syndrome?
How does stress affect the immune system?

20. Can you ever be too optimistic?

21. Responses to Stress
People with different personalities respond to stress in different ways. The stress of an event depends largely on what the event means to the person involved. Biology also accounts for differences in people’s responses to stress.
Beliefs people have that they can accomplish goals that they set for themselves
Closely related to self-confidence
Self-confident person likely to keep cool under pressure
Self-Efficacy Expectations
People with certain traits can withstand stress
Commitment—stress as motivation
Challenge—prefer change
Control—feelings of being in control of their lives
Psychological Hardiness –

22. Sense of Humor
Students who had a sense of humor and saw humor in difficult situations experienced less stress than students who were not able to find humor in the same situations.
Some research suggests that emotional responses may aid the immune system.
Predictability
Having the ability to predict a stressor seems to reduce the amount of stress it causes.
Social Support
The presence and interest of other people provide support that helps people cope with stress.
Ways to help: express concern, provide physical relief, offer information, provide feedback, and socialize

24. What role might attitude play in responding to stress?
Reading Check
Draw Conclusions
What role might attitude play in responding to stress?
Answer: Attitude affects how one responds to stress. A positive attitude yields a positive response to stress. A negative attitude yields a negative response to stress.

25. The General Adaptation Syndrome
Selye observed that different stressful situations each produced similar responses by the body.
The general adaptation syndrome (GAS) has three stages:
The alarm reaction
Initiated when a stressor is perceived
Sometimes described as the fight-or-flight reaction
Certain hormones are released that prepare the body for stress
The resistance stage
If the stressor is not removed, people try to find a way to cope and to avoid being overwhelmed
The exhaustion stage
If stressor still is not removed, hormones are depleted, muscles are worn out, heart and breathing rates slow down

27. What are the three stages of the general adaptation syndrome?
Reading Check
Summarize
What are the three stages of the general adaptation syndrome?
Answer: alarm reaction, resistance stage, and exhaustion stage

28. Effects of Stress on the Immune System
Most people are exposed to a great variety of disease-causing organisms, but an intact immune system fights off most of them.
White blood cells destroy disease-causing microorganisms, worn-out body cells, and malignant cells.
The immune system “remembers” some invaders and maintains antibodies to fight them, often for years.
Stress and the Immune System
One reason stress exhausts people is that it stimulates bodies to produce steroids, which suppress the immune system.
One study showed lower immune-system functioning during more stressful periods.
Another study showed that training in coping skills improved the functioning of the immune system.

29. How does the immune system protect people against disease?
Reading Check
Analyze
How does the immune system protect people against disease?
Answer: by producing white blood cells that destroy disease-causing microorganisms

30. Section 3 at a Glance Psychological Factors and Health
Both biological and psychological factors play important roles in health problems.
Headaches are among the most common stress-related health problems.
People can make behavioral changes to help reduce the risks of heart disease.
People with cancer must cope with the biological aspects of their illness as well as with its psychological effects.

31. Psychological Factors and Health
Main Idea
Both biological and psychological factors play an important role in medical problems, including headaches, heart disease, and cancer.
Reading Focus
How do biological and psychological factors affect health?
What are the most common types of headaches?
What factors contribute to heart disease?
How is cancer linked to stress?

32. Can you see my pain?

33. Biological and Psychological Factors
Biological factors such as family history of a disease, exposure to disease-causing microorganisms, inoculations against certain diseases, accidents, injuries, and age play an important role in physical illness.
Psychological factors also affect health problems.
Attitudes
Patterns of behavior
Anxiety
Depression
Health psychology: concerned with the relationship between psychological factors and the prevention and treatment of physical illness.

34. How can a bad family medical history be a positive opportunity?
Reading Check
Analyze
How can a bad family medical history be a positive opportunity?
Answer: A bad family medical history is an opportunity to keep harmful genes from expressing themselves.

35. Headaches Among the most common stress-related health problems
Most frequent is muscle-tension: dull, steady pain on both sides of the head
Second most common is migraine headache: sudden onset and severe throbbing on one side of the head
Affect 10 percent of Americans
Type A more affected
Types of Headaches
Aspirin, acetaminophen, and prescription drugs are used to fight headache pain.
Different medicines work in different ways.
Changing behaviors is also helpful: progressive relaxation and biofeedback training help to relieve pain
Treatment –

36. Identify Cause and Effect
Reading Check
Identify Cause and Effect
How can headache pain result in a vicious cycle?
Answer: Headaches are often caused by muscle tension. The pain of the headache increases rather than relaxes muscle tension.

38. Heart Disease Risk Factors Behavioral Changes
Nearly half of U.S. deaths are caused by heart disease. Causes include:
Family history (genetics)
Physical conditions
Patterns of consumption
Type A behavior
Anger and hostility
Job strain
Lack of exercise
Behavioral Changes
Various medical treatments exist, but certain behavioral changes can reduce risk:
Quitting smoking
Controlling weight
Reducing hypertension
Lowering serum cholesterol levels
Changing type A behavior patterns
Exercising regularly

40. What can people do to help reduce the risk of heart disease?
Reading Check
Summarize
What can people do to help reduce the risk of heart disease?
Answer: quit smoking, control weight, reduce hypertension, lower cholesterol, change type A behavior, and exercise regularly

41. Cancer Risk Factors Psychological Aspects Positive Attitude
Cancer involves the rapid growth of malignant cells.
Individuals whose immune systems are weakened appear to be more likely candidates for getting cancer.
Risk Factors
People may inherit a tendency to develop certain kinds of cancer.
Certain behaviors increase risk.
Stress may be a risk factor.
Psychological Aspects
Cancer patients must cope with weakness, pain, and medicine side-effects.
They may face anxiety, fear, depression, and vulnerability.
Positive Attitude
One study found a significantly higher survival rate among women who met their cancer diagnosis with a “fighting spirit.”
Social support increases the survival rate.

42. Identify Supporting Details
Reading Check
Identify Supporting Details
What psychological effects might those with cancer face?
Answer: People with cancer face anxiety regarding treatment and the possibility of death.

43. Section 4 at a Glance Ways of Coping with Stress
Defensive coping methods as a means of handling stress are self-defeating and usually harmful.
Effective active coping methods for dealing with stress include changing stressful thoughts, relaxing, and exercising.

44. Ways of Coping with Stress
Main Idea
People handle stress using both defensive and active coping methods. Defensive coping methods are often self-defeating, while active coping methods are far more effective.
Reading Focus
What are some defensive coping methods?
How do active coping methods help ease stress?

45. Why won't Japanese businessmen take a break?

46. Defensive Coping
Defensive coping: a way to handle stress and reduce immediate effects, but not the most desirable way. It may involve socially unacceptable behavior. It does not eliminate the source of stress.
Substance abuse
People may become psychologically dependent on these substances in an effort to decrease their awareness of stress or disguise an unpleasant reality.
Aggression
Using violence to cope with stressful situations rarely, if ever, provides a solution to the problem. May heighten the problem.
Withdrawal
Can be emotional or physical withdrawal.
Defense mechanisms
Protect ego from anxiety produced by an awareness of unacceptable ideas or impulses. They become problematic when they are the only coping mechanisms a person has.

48. Reading Check
Find the Main Idea
Why are defensive coping strategies not the most desirable ways to deal with stress?
Answer: Defensive coping strategies are socially unacceptable and self-defeating.

49. Active Coping
Active coping: involves changing the environment or situation (in socially acceptable ways) to remove stressors, or changing one’s response to stress so that stressors are no longer harmful.
Changing stressful thoughts
People who have stressful thoughts can learn to recognize and change them before becoming overwhelmed by them.
Relaxation techniques
A number of techniques for reducing the bodily reactions to stress:
Meditation
Biofeedback
Progressive relaxation
Exercise
Fosters physical health, enhances people’s psychological well-being, and helps people cope with stress.
Breathing
Practicing controlled breathing can reduce stress.

51. Identify Supporting Details
Reading Check
Identify Supporting Details
How can active coping methods relieve some health problems?
Answer: Active coping methods can relieve some health problems by reducing stress that compromises the body’s immune system.

52. Current Research in Psychology
Coping with Catastrophe
Even though the tragedy of September 11, 2001, mostly affected those who lost family and friends, people who only witnessed the attacks on television suffered what psychologists call “second-hand stress.”
Many people who witnessed the terrorist attacks on television suffered symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder.
Similar reactions occurred after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Watching scenes on television can cause the biological fight-or-flight reaction.
Some scientists suggest taking a break from the news to alleviate symptoms; others say this is a form of denial.
One study found that those who donated blood or money felt less helpless.
Disasters can bring a nation together when the shared response is to reach out and help the victims. –

54. Thinking Critically
How does helping disaster victims reduce second-hand stress?
Think of a time when you helped someone overcome difficulties. What did you do? How did it make you feel?

55. Simulation: Applying What You’ve Learned
Stress and Active Coping Methods
What is the most effective way to cope with a stressful situation?
In this simulation, you will work in a group to develop and perform a simulation in which you role-play a stressful situation and effective coping methods.
Your teacher will assign each group one stressful situation.
1. Introduction
Discuss with your group the source of stress that you have been assigned.
Assign a role to each member.
Discuss appropriate responses to the situation.
Write the dialogue and practice it several times.
2. Prepare the Simulation –

56. Simulation (cont'd.) Speak loudly enough.
Act your role in a serious manner.
Be supportive of group members if they falter.
As an audience member, take notes on:
stressor being shown
effectiveness of coping methods
how you would react
3. Perform the Simulation
As a class, discuss the following:
What did you think of the performances?
Did each represent a stressful situation realistically?
What were some of the effective coping mechanisms portrayed?
Can you use what you have learned to deal with stress more effectively?
4. Discussion –